Ho Kwon Ping, Founder and Executive Chairman, Banyan Tree Holdings, Interviewed by David Kong

Mr. Ho Kwon Ping (KP) shares his fascinating career journey starting as a journalist and eventually transitioning to the hotel industry. We discuss the inspiration behind his innovative concepts from the pool villa three decades ago to the recently launched Banyan Tree Escape that is devoid of walls and windows. He shares how he fosters a culture of innovation and continuous improvement. KP serves on the Board of Standard Chartered Bank, Diageo and Singapore Airlines as well as the Chairman of several other organizations. We discuss how he navigates complex dynamics and coalesces diverse opinions. He also offers thoughts on overcoming setbacks, effective communications, and self-empowerment.

Transcript

David Kong: 0:01

Greetings. I'm David Kong, the founder and principal of DEI Advisors. We are a non profit organization dedicated to personal empowerment. I'm delighted to welcome a highly accomplished and respected industry icon from Asia to our show today. Mr. Ho Kwong Ting is the founder and executive chairman of Banyan Tree Holdings and Laguna Hotels and Resorts. KP has received numerous awards and accolades, including the London Business School Entrepreneurship Award. For services to the country, he has been decorated with the Meritorious Service Medal and Distinguished Service Order by the Singapore government. KP, it's such an honor to welcome you to our show. Thank you. Thank you. Let's get started. You have had an amazing career journey. And it has been just so fascinating to watch your progression from being a generalist initially and getting involved with your family business before transitioning to the hotel industry. And you've built one of the most respected hotel brands in the world. Tell us about some of the highlights and what are some of the factors that contributed to your success?

Ho Kwon Ping: 1:16

I've long said that two words, which later became the title of a book I wrote. Were probably the reason for my getting into trouble and getting, I was thrown out of Stanford University, one of the handful of people who ever accomplished that. So I think I'm among a rare breed of people. There are a lot of graduates from Stanford, a few dropouts, but very few who got thrown out for that accomplishment so called as well as. Other things. I went to jail twice. And then I've got moderate success with what I'm doing with binary. And I've credited that with the 2 words asking why I've always been very inquisitive. I've always been asking the question as to why this or why that. And I think the secret to anyone's career success is asking the right questions about why things are and why things are not. And that to me has been absolutely critical as a source of innovation and as a source of personal empowerment. It's very important part of personal empowerment to believe the things that you do believe in with total conviction because you've actually asked questions and answer them through your own journey of discovery.

David Kong: 2:31

I totally agree with you. Simon Sinek's book, Start With Why, is one of my favorite books, and I love that book because it gives purpose to what we do, and anyone who works for you need to have purpose as well, and if you can give them purpose, they achieve something noble. So I love everything that you said. We'll touch on those two things that you talked about being kicked out of Stanford as well as being thrown in jail twice. We'll touch on that in just a little bit. Now, in a recent interview, you talked about inclusive and exclusive luxury. And of course, everyone knows Banyan Tree is a very renowned luxury brand. And you have said that you're You aspire to have Banyan Tree be known as an inclusive luxury brand, similar to the Apple iPhone. Would you mind to elaborate?

Ho Kwon Ping: 3:30

Yeah, I think there's two kinds of luxury. There's exclusive luxury and inclusive luxury. And certain brands... Connote luxury because I have it and you don't and that's the entire source of the luxury and without wanting to insult a famous brand, a famous product, I think the Hermes Birkin bag is an example of exclusive luxury. I've seen a bag. I haven't owned one for 30, 000 us. My wife was given one. So I looked at it and it's a nice bag, right? But it's so value isn't the fact that there's only a few thousand. Of this bag and so you're bragging to people. I got it. You don't have it. That's exclusive luxury. Inclusive luxury means you want to be part of a community that shares the same value. So you want an iPhone isn't really. Luxury anymore. But it's a bit more expensive than other smartphones and so on. But you buy an iPhone because you like the features and because you think, apple people are cool people and you're one of the apple people sort of thing. And so for me, I get really much more excited when I read in, the sort of books that people write in when they come to visit our hotels and so on. And that they've come from relatively You normal backgrounds and they say things like, Oh, I haven't been at the safe to come save some money to come and stay at your luxury resort and they're a young couple. They're not very rich. That to me means a lot more than, super rich celebrities for whom staying at a Bantry is no big deal. So we want to create a community of people where. It's not just luxury. The product is expensive because it is not easy, not cheap to deliver, but they share the same values. And that to me is something we're more keen to do than be an icon for exclusivity.

David Kong: 5:27

I love that. Absolutely love that. That's a democratizing luxury, making it available for everyone. That's really fantastic. Love that. Now, you are well known as an innovator. Your first hotel in Phuket that was on Yeah. Rehabilitated land, and they had no beach, and you were the person that came up with the idea of pool villas, and you pioneered that concept, but now it's a lot of luxury hotels have that. And recently you launched a new brand, the Banyan Tree Escape. And it's a very unusual brand because it's known for being spacious because it has no walls and no windows. Now, tell me, how do you find the inspiration for your innovation?

Ho Kwon Ping: 6:18

I think, there's a popular saying that necessity is the mother of invention. And I actually believe that very much. Innovation doesn't fall from the sky. Innovation is a response to a perceived need. One of the greatest examples for me of innovation was how the CEO of Sony Sony Corporation actually pioneered the whole idea of mobile sound, which is now we have with the iPhone. We had it with the iPod and so on. But he did it with what was then called the Discman. If you might remember, we're the same generation. So if you remember that. The Discman, and that's because Akim Morita, the CEO, loved classical music, and he hated having to switch it off when he went somewhere, and then he'd switch it on when he went back home. So he wanted to have, to listen to classical music on the move. So that was his sort of necessity, and he created something for his own need. And in our particular case, we developed the first banyan tree on a piece of land. Where hitherto, the other pieces of land that we had in Laguna Poquette had beachfronts. So people didn't mind managing them. Dusitani Group managed the first one. We had Sheraton manage another one. When it came to our final piece of land, there was no beach. So nobody wanted to manage it. So we said, okay, let's go ahead and do it. That's when we put up a few villas. because we weren't that confident. So you don't want to do a 200 room hotel. So we did a few villas it'd be cheaper. So that was an all villa hotel. Then we asked ourselves there's no beach. How do we keep them on the farm if there's no beach? Let's build private pools for everybody. And then we said, they might not stay that long. So let's go and build some spas. And I'd never heard of a spa before. We had some consultants from the UK and they came and they trashed the whole idea of what we wanted to do. They said having therapists go on barefoot would be the height of, of poor hygiene and they quit on us. Whereas, in Asia is the highest sign of respect. You don't walk into somebody's house with your shoes on, you walk barefoot. So basically, we pioneered the whole idea of the tropical garden spa. Not clinical, very evocative of the tropics and the pool villa. And now anywhere you go in Southeast Asia, you have pool villas and tropical garden spas. And we pioneered all that. But it wasn't as if it was an idea that dropped from the sky is because we had a real life problem and we responded to it. So I really do believe that innovation is all about responding to your given environment and you're analyzing the environment and asking yourself why don't I do this? Why don't I do that?

David Kong: 9:02

That's wonderful. Identifying a necessity and responding to it, as you mentioned, is the source of the inspiration. I love that. Thank you. Now, you have been at the helm for almost three decades, I think 29 years now, right?

Ho Kwon Ping: 9:20

Yeah, too

David Kong: 9:23

long. For many of us, it would be hard not to have some cynicism, and yet you still inspire and you foster this culture of continuous innovation and improvement. How do you do it?

Ho Kwon Ping: 9:35

I think there's probably two ways to do it. One is we actually inculcate within the group the idea that innovation is an existential imperative. And so we have a phrase called differentiate or die. And the only way you differentiate yourself from somebody else is through innovation, small innovations, big innovations. You may remember that in the hotel industry there was no such thing as a four feet, four fixture bathroom where you had a separate shower and a separate bathtub. And Bob Burns did that because he had his first hotel. A lot of women would be going to the hotel in Kowloon where they wanted a bathtub separate from a shower and that has now become a standard feature in all hotels. So that was his point of differentiation. And you can also see that you can differentiate yourself in about 5 years later, you no longer, whatever you've done that's new is no longer new. Whatever we did as in innovation is pool villas and tropical garden spots, hardly a new now. So you have to continuously differentiate, particularly if you're not a large company like us, we occupy niches. If we do innovative things, people who are far bigger come in, emulate it, and then, you're not new anymore. So that's one. We have a culture where innovation is not a nice to have. It's a must have. And the second thing that's very important is that at the same time that we have structured innovation, meaning we actually analyze an issue and try to, Introduce the idea of innovation in many of our meetings. We have design meetings with other meetings, so it's structured. There's a long process about structured innovation. I don't need to get into that now. But at the same time, this, we also encourage a lot of individual initiative. So crazy ideas are welcome. They are going to be rigorously analyzed. You can't just throw out a crazy idea and implement And I'm the person to shut usually shoot down, cut a lot of them. But at the same time, if somebody has the audacity to propose something, that's pretty cool. We're the first to latch onto it and tell that person, be empowered to carry on with that innovation. Whether you're an F& B manager or you're even just a housekeeper, go ahead and do it. And innovation does not start with the CEO. Innovation starts with the frontline person. That's where it's actually the most felt at the front line, then, of course, every everywhere along the way at H. R. in finance in I. T. It's all very important, but everyone must be infused with the idea that innovation permeates the whole organization.

David Kong: 12:28

That's wonderful that you can cultivate that kind of a culture. And of course, you're right. Also, that the frontline people who are actually interacting with the guests are the ones usually that know what again, back to your. Point about necessity. A response to a necessity drives innovation. That's a really well, said. Okay. You also another interview had talked about entrepreneurship being akin to surfing and as entrepreneurs, one has to know when to write the waves. Would you mind to elaborate and get some examples?

Ho Kwon Ping: 13:06

First, I don't surf and I like watching surfing videos because I like to watch surfing videos, not only the portions where the guy does a great long ride, if you look at surfing, it is quite an interesting analogy to entrepreneurship because you see all these guys out there on their surfboards and there'll be a wave coming by and sometimes some people try to get up and then they don't bother because the wave has passed them by and most of the time, those people who do get up, they will get up and then they'll, they will surf successfully for a little while. And then either the wave has died or they didn't do themselves and they get off. And only occasionally when you have the confluence of luck, meaning it was a great wave. And confluence of luck, timing, you got on in the right time. The guy behind you was a bit too late. And your own skill. With the confluence of these three factors. Then you actually can ride that wave all the way to shore. And it's great to see a guy able to do that. And that's what I mean about entrepreneurship. You have to have the right timing. You could be the smartest guy in the world, greatest product in the world, but timing wasn't right. You didn't have luck. And people, I think the true successful, humble entrepreneurs I know are the ones who actually tell you quite honestly their success was more due to luck. Then to their own skills. Then, of course, you do have to have some skills, but to be honest with it a lot of successful business people wrote on timing and luck and not just their own skills. I've done 2 things. One was a complete failure. I actually started building a jack and built and completed and completely lucked out on a jack up drilling rig which was. It was built for the oil industry, and it's a long story. It was the first jackup rig built in China in the 80s. So it was a really sophisticated product. It was hard to pull off. We did a fantastic job. And when we wrote that wave, which was the offshore oil boom in China. We thought it was great. We read the timing but the whole boom fizzled out. And then the global oil industry. Fell into a deep funk. So that was a huge failure and that's an example of how we did it but the timing was completely wrong and we weren't lucky. That's one example. Banyan tree is an example of timing and luck. And it's too long to get into here, but we were lucky that global tourism went into Thailand and Thailand boomed. In the late eighties, early nineties, and we rode that boom all the way to shore. One has to be honest with oneself and recognize that entrepreneurship is not about how wonderful you are. It's about how lucky you are. It's about some skills that you have. And it's about the fact that you did, lucky or not, you were at the right place at the right time.

David Kong: 16:05

I can't agree with you more. Timing is so very important. Let's talk about navigating complex dynamics. You've served on the boards of Standard China Bank, the ASIO, Singapore Airlines, and many others. You are the founding chairman of Singapore Management University, and you've chaired the Singapore Power and Media Corp Singapore. Now, collaborating with diverse stakeholders with strong opinions can be very complex and challenging. Help us understand how you navigate such dynamics effectively.

Ho Kwon Ping: 16:43

There are a few things. You try to have a bit of humor. I always, it's one of my standard devices. Anybody who knows me as a chairman of any institution knows that. Before the start of a board meeting, always take bets on whatever the topic is, because that forces people to break the ice and so on. But essentially, when you chair a company, and you've got many different views, and you have to summarize those views and hopefully shepherd the board. To some sort of conclusion, it's shepherding them rather than anything else. I've found that 3, 3 things usually help. 1 is people when they express strong opinions, usually go in all kinds of directions and the whole discussion can move into 1 direction. I always try to bring discussions at any level at a committee level or a board level when you work with. A complex dynamics like that always go back to first principles. Once the discussion has gone off in the direction, you always have to repeat to people again. What are the first principles we're talking about? So that's quite important. The second thing is when you get back to the first principle, it's very important to break down a problem into clear Analytical logical pieces, because people also go all over the place, the emotions get in and then they jumble things down. So you've got to go back to first principles, then you should break down the problem into clear pieces that you then discuss and the final part, which is probably the most difficult part is you have to try to get people to discuss a problem without their ego getting involved by ego. I don't mean conceit. I don't mean about them thinking how fantastic they are. Getting their emotions out of the way, getting their ego in terms of how they feel about something emotionally that to me has always been the biggest impediment to leadership. The biggest impediment to people coming to conclusions, which usually are staring you in the face, but people don't come to these conclusions because the emotions get involved for whatever reasons. So I found that sticking to these three principles can be quite useful. To have a cool, rational a congenial and amiable discussion about things, so that doesn't get too heated and things go all over the place.

David Kong: 19:02

Yeah, when I listened to those 3 points that you made, I think the word constructive comes into my mind right away because you are taking all this feedback and you. Want to have a constructive conversation so we can have a productive outcome. That's very wise. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you. Now, talking about the values and principles, what are your core values and principles that guide your decision making and actions?

Ho Kwon Ping: 19:34

Our core values, I think to me, authenticity is one core value because I see so many people to put it mildly, non authentic. Especially those people who consider themselves leaders. The more a person thinks himself or herself a leader, usually the more inauthentic they are. They usually have various kinds of poses and so on. And that can actually delude you into thinking that you are what your image is. So if I've always said to our own PR people, we generate great PR, but don't believe a word of it yourself. So I think authenticity is one important principle. Humility is another one. Humility doesn't mean false humility. You've done some good things in life. We'll step up to it and acknowledge it. Humility is probably an absence of ego. An absence of putting yourself at the front and center of everything. Of course, these are the principles for me as a, as an individual. These are not the values of the company per se. The company's got many other, motherhood, apple pie kind of statements. But as an individual. I've always found that taking myself out of the equation and making a decision, including very importantly, you probably heard the saying that a person who doesn't need to take credit for a decision usually can accomplish a lot. And too many people want to claim credit and then they get into all kinds of problems. And I found that when I don't need to take credit for something, and I'm very happy to. To praise A, B or C for work that they've done, I can actually accomplish a lot more than trying to be the guy who was great and, leading the company and the source of all inspiration and so on and so forth. So those have been useful for me on a

David Kong: 21:26

personal level. Yeah, I love what you said. Being authentic and genuine, having humility, and also not claiming credit, not having the ego to claim the credit all the time is, they are all very important. And actually I had someone say the other day on the show that he tries to give the boss, his boss, the credit, which I think is very smart.

Ho Kwon Ping: 21:53

Yeah, authenticity is also important because we all try to be the perfect leader, but we're not. I know that my failing, I know where my strengths are. I know that my weakness is my impatience. I'm pretty impatient and I display it, but I don't try to put up a fake front. I'm impatient. And then when I've been a little bit too impatient, I apologize for it. But you don't try to be what you're not. People can see through you. And I think you just have to be who you are with all your flaws. And show that you acknowledge your flaws as other people have also. So that is what I mean by authenticity to be aware of your flaws and not think not to generate an image of yourself. Perfection.

David Kong: 22:41

Yeah. Thanks for clarifying What being authentic and genuine means. It also means that you are vulnerable because you're aware of all your shortcomings and you're not trying to hide them.

Ho Kwon Ping: 22:53

And people accept it, people accept it. They absolutely do because they know you. Yeah. If you try to make people think you're perfect and then you're not people don't like that. That's what

David Kong: 23:05

That's right. That's right. Now, you've faced a spectrum of challenges in your long career. You've dealt with the tsunami in Phuket in 2004, and fast forward to just a few years ago, the COVID 19 pandemic. Tell us, what is your general approach to challenges?

Ho Kwon Ping: 23:24

I'm not Buddhist, but I might be inclined a little bit that way. In the sense that I don't think anything. It really lasts. Terrible time passes. Everything passes. A good time also doesn't last. So you have to have a certain equanimity of mind a certain balance that when really bad things happen to you, to the company. I've had bad personal experiences. I've had near death experiences with the company and you have to have a certain mindfulness where there's a part of you that stands above you looking at yourself. A certain detachment that says all things will pass good and bad. And that leaves you a certain calmness in knowing that even in the worst of times, it will pass as COVID passed, as the tsunami passed. And, but it also leaves you with a certain recognition that, for example, right now we're doing really fantastic. That will pass too, and some other crisis will hit too. So that ability to recognize that nothing lasts forever, good or bad, gives you a certain calmness. And like the movie Gone with the Wind where it's a Scott O'Hara or whoever it was says tomorrow is another day. My wife says I'm an eternal optimist. Bad things happen and I say, Oh, tomorrow's another day. It helps when you're in this industry.

David Kong: 24:59

Yeah, that does give you a sort of calmness once you realize that everything would pass. but what other, how do you prepare for these challenges? How do you, when you're going through them what are some of the

25:14

things

Ho Kwon Ping: 25:15

that you do? You have to be at several level, let's say these are not personal challenges, but corporate ones. Okay. For things that happen to bunion. Tree one is pretty obvious. We did not borrow a lot of money because we knew we would, there'll be bad times, like a lot of companies I know. During a zero rate zero interest rate environment, free money environment thought it would last again with my philosophy was nothing will last forever, so we didn't overgear ourselves. And so we never did fantastically well as some hedge funds and defense have done. But at the same time, when COVID hit and we had zero income and massive losses, we were able to withstand that. But I think the most important thing to deal with in an organization like ours. When we've got so many crises from, SARS and bird flu to COVID to natural disasters like tsunami and riots and so on. The most important thing is to keep faith with your own associates, because it's very easy for people to become dispirited. So we have within the organization. A key four words that I guess summarize are one of our key core values and is, in fact, the underpinning of all our service culture and those four words are I am with you, which actually just means empathy. And we believe that empathy between the service provider and the service receiver is at the core of what service is about. It's not service should never be servitude, but at the same time, empathy is what binds management and associates together. When we had so many of these crises, we had so many times where we had to introduce unpaid leave. And in many countries, like in Asia, I'm not sure what it is like in the U. S. You cannot legally enforce unpaid leave. It has to be voluntary. So we would have town hall meetings where people would, everybody would have to show up and they would have to sign a form to show that they agree to an unpaid leave. And we've done that countless times and people are happy to do it and because they know times are good, like now again, We pay them back. So you have to build up within an organization that when times are bad, everybody rallies together. When times are good, we all share together. Otherwise, it's very hard to go through the types of crises that the hospitality industry has, which is probably more susceptible to event risk than many other industries. It's hard to survive in this industry if you don't have the trust of all your colleagues. So that, to me, is one of the key approaches to dealing with a challenge. Make sure the team is fully together and they all go through a problem together. When people feel that they go through a problem together, they usually can't stick it out like Britain in World War II. If you go through a problem the U. S. is going through a lot of things now, and everybody's divided, and everybody thinks it's the other person's fault, it's the leadership's fault, or it's our neighbor's fault, or it's somebody else's fault, You cannot go through a crisis together.

David Kong: 28:31

So true. I absolutely love it. And I really like what you said about empathy, because that is a foundation to. Inspiring people to do the impossible. Thank you for sharing that. Now we talked a little bit about your experience at Stanford and being thrown in jail twice for your protest. You've gone through a fair share of disappointments and setbacks. Can you say how you find strength and resilience to prevail?

Ho Kwon Ping: 29:04

Now in, in later years, I found strength and resilience in my family and my wife and my children, my grandkids and all that stuff. But in my, earlier days as a student in Stanford and so on, when I got thrown out of Stanford, I got thrown in jail in Singapore. It's hard. And I think what it does do for you in later years is that adversity when you're young is actually good for your soul. Not too much. You might destroy your soul. But I think a certain amount of adversity does make you stronger. And when I was in jail, I never knew because I went to jail as a detainee, which meant that I wasn't given a jail sentence. It could be I wasn't convicted of any crime house or considered a political detainee. And under British laws that Singapore was kept, you can be jailed indefinitely, forever. The people have been jailed for 20, 30 years. So you, and I was only 20 something years old when that happened. You learn a certain ability to look at yourself from above. You look at yourself with a certain amount of detachment. And this detachment, I think, has been very important for me. It's easy to talk about finding strength, finding resilience. But where does that strength and resilience come from for somebody who's not religious? It's just I don't have particular religion, so I can't find my faith as being the main reason for being able to go through all these adversities. But I found that being somewhat detached, looking at yourself from above and seeing that you are like an actor going through certain things. And again. All this will pass and it did pass and it took a long time at the age of 20 something when I was released from jail, had no job and I thought my whole future was over. It's not over. You pick yourself up and you just continue with life. And I think this is so important for all people because it's not just about careers. I've had close relatives who lost A loved one. Not my sister lost her son at the age of 20 something. Going through that is the worst thing you could possibly imagine. And people, I think, can be surprised at how much resilience they have within themselves. And being able to share that pain with other people, certainly, it certainly helps not to keep it all inside you. That's when you find out who I am. The people who you really truly love and the people who love you.

David Kong: 31:43

Yeah. That is so well articulated. I really love it. I see that we're running short on time. So let me ask you one final question, which is about personal empowerment. As the advisors, as an nonprofit organization, our mission is to help people realize their career aspiration. And our whole mission is about personal empowerment. Would you mind to share parting advice on personal empowerment?

Ho Kwon Ping: 32:13

I think we all want to make an impact. That's what empowerment is all about. And whether it's the empowerment of a waiter being able to do something nice to a person who is serving, or personal empowerment of a CEO or any individual. We all want to make an impact. And I think legacy is too big a word for it. But we want to make an impact. And I think one important thing that I feel is that a personal empowerment is when you can do something and it's not about you. It's because of you. If you've done something that has made somebody else happy, it's because of you. And if you feel that empowerment is not about you, but it's because of you, you've done something good. I think that's where people feel very good about empowerment. That it's empowerment is nothing about you being a powerful person. So if you're a supervisor or you're a CEO and you're empowered and you think it's about you, I think it's not going to work. But if you've made an impact because of you, then I think it means something. And that's what empowerment is all about,

David Kong: 33:30

in my view. That's right. So well said. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your spending so much time with us, KP. I know how busy you are and we are very grateful. And Your advice, perspectives, and the lessons you've shared with us are so insightful and just so wise. Thank you very much.

Ho Kwon Ping: 33:52

Thank you. Okay. Take care.

David Kong: 33:56

And to the audience, if you enjoyed this show, I hope you can join us on our website, DEIAdvisors. org. There are plenty of other shows that are similar to this. Thank you. I hope to see you there. Thanks again, KP.

Ho Kwon Ping: 34:09

Bye. Bye.